Notifications Overview

How Notifications Work

UptimeIO uses a flexible two-tier notification system that separates what to monitor from who to notify:

Integrations: Individual notification channels (email, SMS, Slack, etc.)
Notification Profiles: Groups of integrations that can be assigned to monitors

This separation allows you to manage notifications centrally and reuse the same notification configuration across multiple monitors.

Architecture

Monitor → Notification Profile → Integrations → Recipients

Create Integrations

Set up individual notification channels:

Email addresses
SMS phone numbers
Slack webhooks
Discord webhooks
Custom webhooks

Create Notification Profiles

Group integrations together and configure which events trigger notifications.

Assign to Monitors

Assign one or more notification profiles to each monitor.

Receive Alerts

When incidents occur, notifications are sent through all integrations in the assigned profiles.

Notification Events

UptimeIO can send notifications for different types of events:

Monitor Down

When a monitor fails health checks (3 failures from 2+ regions)

Monitor Recovery

When a monitor recovers after being down

Slow Response

When response times exceed configured thresholds

Slow Response Resolved

When response times return to normal

SSL Certificate Expiry

When SSL certificates are approaching expiration

DNS Error

When DNS resolution fails or returns unexpected values

Event Cascade Filtering

UptimeIO uses a two-level cascade filter system for fine-grained notification control:

Level 1: Profile-Level Events

Configure which events the entire profile should handle:

Notification Profile: "Production Alerts"
Events:
  on_failure: true
  on_recovery: true
  on_ssl_expiry: true
  on_dns_error: true
  on_slow_response: true
  on_slow_response_resolved: false

If an event is disabled at the profile level, NO integrations in that profile will receive notifications for that event, regardless of their individual settings.

Level 2: Integration-Level Events

Each integration has its own event preferences:

Integration: [email protected] (Email)
Events:
  on_failure: true          # Receive failure alerts
  on_recovery: true         # Receive recovery alerts
  on_ssl_expiry: true       # Receive SSL alerts
  on_slow_response: false   # Don't receive slow response alerts

How It Works

For a notification to be sent, BOTH conditions must be true:

✅ Event enabled at profile level
✅ Event enabled at integration level

Example 1: Notification Sent
Example 2: Blocked by Profile
Example 3: Blocked by Integration

Profile Level:
  on_failure: true ✅

Integration Level (SMS):
  on_failure: true ✅

Result: SMS notification sent ✅

Profile Level:
  on_slow_response: false ❌

Integration Level (Email):
  on_slow_response: true ✅

Result: No notification sent ❌
(Blocked at profile level)

Profile Level:
  on_recovery: true ✅

Integration Level (SMS):
  on_recovery: false ❌

Result: No SMS sent ❌
(Integration opted out)

Use Cases

Scenario 1: Different Alerts for Different Channels

Profile: "Production Monitoring"
Profile Events: All enabled

Integrations:
  - Email ([email protected]):
      Events: All enabled
      Use: Complete audit trail
  
  - SMS (+1234567890):
      Events: Only failures
      Use: Critical alerts only
  
  - Slack (webhook):
      Events: Failures, recoveries, SSL
      Use: Team awareness

Result: Email gets everything, SMS only critical failures, Slack gets important events.

Scenario 2: Business Hours vs After Hours

Profile 1: "Business Hours"
  - Email: [email protected]
  - Slack: #monitoring
  Events: All events

Profile 2: "After Hours"
  - SMS: +1234567890 (on-call)
  - PagerDuty: integration-key
  Events: Only failures and critical issues

Result: Assign both profiles to monitors. During incidents, business hours team gets detailed notifications, after-hours team gets critical alerts.

Scenario 3: Severity-Based Routing

Profile: "Critical Services"
  Events: All enabled
  Integrations:
    - SMS: +1234567890
    - PagerDuty: key-123
    - Email: [email protected]

Profile: "Non-Critical Services"
  Events: All enabled
  Integrations:
    - Email: [email protected]
    - Slack: #monitoring

Result: Critical monitors trigger immediate alerts, non-critical monitors use less intrusive channels.

Notification Deduplication

UptimeIO automatically prevents duplicate notifications:

Same Integration in Multiple Profiles

If the same integration appears in multiple profiles assigned to a monitor, it only receives one notification per event.

Monitor: "API Server"
Profiles:
  - "Team Alerts" (includes [email protected])
  - "Production Alerts" (includes [email protected])

Result: [email protected] receives ONE notification, not two

Rate Limiting

UptimeIO rate-limits notifications to prevent alert fatigue:

Same incident: One notification per state change
Flapping protection: Delays notifications if monitor flaps
Burst protection: Limits notifications per time window

Notification Delivery

Delivery Guarantees

UptimeIO ensures reliable notification delivery:

Immediate attempt

Notification sent immediately when incident is created.

Automatic retries

If delivery fails, automatic retries with exponential backoff:

Retry 1: After 1 second
Retry 2: After 2 seconds
Retry 3: After 4 seconds

Dead letter queue

After 3 failed attempts, notification is moved to dead letter queue for manual review.

Delivery Status

Track notification delivery in the dashboard:

Status	Meaning
Delivered	Successfully sent and acknowledged
Pending	Queued for delivery
Retrying	Failed, attempting retry
Failed	All retry attempts exhausted

View delivery status for each notification in the incident timeline.

Notification Content

Notifications include comprehensive incident information:

Email Notifications

Subject: [UptimeIO] Monitor Down: API Server

Monitor: API Server
URL: https://api.example.com/health
Status: DOWN
Started: 2024-01-15 10:30:00 UTC
Duration: 5 minutes

Failure Details:
- Region: us-east-1
- Error: Connection timeout after 10000ms
- Status Code: N/A
- Response Time: N/A

Verification:
- 3 failed checks from 2 different regions
- Regions: us-east-1, eu-west-1, ap-southeast-1

View Incident: https://app.uptimeio.com/incidents/inc_123

SMS Notifications

[UptimeIO] DOWN: API Server
https://api.example.com/health
Error: Connection timeout
View: https://uptimeio.com/i/inc_123

SMS messages are concise to fit within SMS length limits while providing essential information.

Webhook Notifications

{
  "event": "monitor.down",
  "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
  "monitor": {
    "id": "mon_abc123",
    "name": "API Server",
    "url": "https://api.example.com/health",
    "type": "HTTP"
  },
  "incident": {
    "id": "inc_xyz789",
    "status": "open",
    "started_at": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    "verification": {
      "failed_checks": 3,
      "regions": ["us-east-1", "eu-west-1", "ap-southeast-1"]
    }
  },
  "error": {
    "message": "Connection timeout after 10000ms",
    "region": "us-east-1"
  }
}

Best Practices

Use profiles for logical grouping

Create profiles based on:

Teams (Frontend Team, Backend Team)
Severity (Critical, Warning, Info)
Time (Business Hours, After Hours)
Environment (Production, Staging)

Configure integration-level events carefully

Email: Enable all events (audit trail)
SMS: Only critical events (failures)
Slack: Important events (failures, recoveries, SSL)
PagerDuty: Only failures (incident management)

Test your notifications

After setting up:

Use “Test Now” to manually trigger a check
Temporarily set unrealistic expectations to trigger failure
Verify all integrations receive notifications
Check notification content and formatting
Restore correct configuration

Monitor notification delivery

Regularly review:

Delivery success rates
Failed notifications in dead letter queue
Integration health status
Response times for webhook integrations

Notification Seats

Notification seats control how many people can receive notifications:

How Seats Work

Plan	Owner Seats	Team Seats	Notification Seats
Free	1 (owner)	0	0
Solo	1 (owner)	Purchase additional	Purchase additional
Team	1 (owner)	Included	Purchase additional
Enterprise	1 (owner)	Included	Purchase additional

Seat Types

Owner Seat
Team Seat
Notification Seat

Included in all plans
Full dashboard access
Can add 1 email + 1 SMS integration

Learn more about seats and pricing in the Billing section.

SMS Credits

SMS notifications consume credits:

Plan	Monthly Credits	Credit Expiry
Free	0	N/A
Solo	Included	3 months
Team	Included	3 months
Enterprise	Included	3 months

Monthly credits expire after 3 months. Purchased credits never expire.

Learn more about SMS credits in the Billing section.

Next Steps

Notification Profiles

Create and manage notification profiles

Integrations

Set up notification channels

Email Integration

Configure email notifications

SMS Integration

Configure SMS notifications

Getting Started

Monitor Types

Essentials

Notifications

Status Pages

Integrations

Plans & Billing

​How Notifications Work

​Architecture

​Notification Events

Monitor Down

Monitor Recovery

Slow Response

Slow Response Resolved

SSL Certificate Expiry

DNS Error

​Event Cascade Filtering

​Level 1: Profile-Level Events

​Level 2: Integration-Level Events

​How It Works

​Use Cases

​Scenario 1: Different Alerts for Different Channels

​Scenario 2: Business Hours vs After Hours

​Scenario 3: Severity-Based Routing

​Notification Deduplication

​Notification Delivery

​Delivery Guarantees

​Delivery Status

​Notification Content

​Email Notifications

​SMS Notifications

​Webhook Notifications

​Best Practices

​Notification Seats

​How Seats Work

​Seat Types

​SMS Credits

​Next Steps

Notification Profiles

Integrations

Email Integration

SMS Integration

How Notifications Work

Architecture

Notification Events

Event Cascade Filtering

Level 1: Profile-Level Events

Level 2: Integration-Level Events

How It Works

Use Cases

Scenario 1: Different Alerts for Different Channels

Scenario 2: Business Hours vs After Hours

Scenario 3: Severity-Based Routing

Notification Deduplication

Notification Delivery

Delivery Guarantees

Delivery Status

Notification Content

Email Notifications

SMS Notifications

Webhook Notifications

Best Practices

Notification Seats

How Seats Work

Seat Types

SMS Credits

Next Steps